Ghouls
Kindred produce ghouls when living humans imbibe a quantity of vampire blood. So long as he continues to receive a monthly infusion of Vitae, a ghoul effectively stops aging and gains increased strength. With the blessings come curses, including a dependency, certain diluted clan weaknesses, and uncontrollable anger and dark appetites of their own Beast. Ghouls serve most often as servants, catspaws, blood sources, and utterly loyal tools to vampires. They hold no real status in the Sabbat or Camarilla, viewed as chattel and toys. Revenants are byproducts of twisted biological experimentation that would make Mengele cringe in horror. A kind of hereditary ghoul from specific families, they can manufacture their own Vitae; therefore, they require no vampire to sustain them. However, their primarily Tzimisce creators tend to watch over revenant family trees like any gardener tracks his tools and seedstock. Concepts These are sample concepts with target Camarilla clans noted in brackets. * Bratva enforcer (Brujah) * Burnt-out cop (Nosferatu) * Homeless junkie (Brujah or Nosferatu) * Junior attorney with a case overload (Tremere, Ventrue) * Neighbourhood gossip (Nosferatu, Toreador) * Night-shift guard or longshoreman (Gangrel, Nosferatu) * Obsessed conspiracy theorist (Malkavian) * Ruthless financier or real estate entrepreneur (Ventrue) * Second-string club DJ or bartender (Toreador) Mechanics The core rules for ghouls and revenants come from V20, pp. 496-507. Ghouls: Fatal Addiction is out of date and not referenced. Ghouls and revenants use the base mortal template and gain additional benefits, such as Disciplines. Revenants have a weakness or derangement based upon their family. Neither ghouls or revenants can learn Paths of Enlightenment. They cannot shed their humanity. Don't ask. Ghouls Characters have two routes to become a ghoul: choose ghoul as your race in CharGen or consume vampiric blood in roleplay. There is no significant difference between these options. Mortals: Camarilla or Sabbat. Mortal characters are ghouled at any point in play if she consumes at least one point of Vitae. Her aging is suspended. She remains ghouled as long as she is fed a further point of Vitae once every thirty days. If she loses access to her blood source, she immediately assumes her physical age as the curse of Caine dilutes too far to stop aging. She is subject to the following rules: * Must have a player character Domitor. * Clan Weakness: Gained for certain clans, such as Ventrue and Nosferatu. * Disciplines: 1 dot in Potence. ** Can purchase physical Disciplines (Celerity or Fortitude) or your Domitor's in-clan Disciplines. ** Discipline rating cannot exceed Domitor's Generation limits. * Blood Magic: Thaumaturgy or Necromancy may only be purchased by Clan ghouls. CharGen Ghouls: Camarilla only. Ghouls created in character generation are assumed to have more experience with their state, and all its blessings and curses. He has deeper understanding of his capabilities and his inherent weaknesses. He is subject to the following rules: * Must have a player character Domitor. * Clan Weakness: Gained for certain clans, such as Ventrue and Nosferatu. * Disciplines: 1 dot in Potence plus 1 additional dot. ** This Discipline must be chosen from innate physical Disciplines (Celerity or Fortitude) or your Domitor's in-clan Disciplines. ** Discipline rating cannot exceed 1. * Blood Magic: Thaumaturgy or Necromancy cannot be learned in CharGen, and may only be purchased by Clan ghouls. Revenants Revenant families are largely the results of Tzimisce experimentation, and the clan originated and controls these bloodlines. They are raised aware of their condition and the awful lords they serve, often contained for most of their lives on private estates, rural villages or gated communities apart from the normal world. Even the mildest-looking revenant is fundamentally flawed, deranged, and likely to fly off the handle. Their corrupted genetics make them less stable than any human or regular ghoul. Revenants serve as slightly more refined tools in the Sabbat arsenal, though a revenant is not and never will be considered equal to the greenest shovelhead. He cannot receive creation rites or join the True Sabbat. Cainites have no compunctions about removing chattel. Families Revenants must come from one of the following four families. * Bratovitch: A family every bit bestial as the animals they breed, the Bratovitches are renown for their perversity and savagery. They keep largely to isolated rural areas. Their psychotic anger and brutish behaviour puts off many Sabbat. * Grimaldi: Formerly Italian merchants, luxurious excess and politics saturate this family's life. They handle mortal affairs beneath the Sabbat leadership they are inextricably bound to serve. A misstep for a Grimaldi is certain death as a creative object lesson. * Obertus: A psychologically unstable bloodline of obsessive scholars serve the Tzimisce almost exclusively. They are reclusive and antisocial, driven to unearth weird and strange lore into vampires and other... oddities. * Zantosa: Depraved, decadent, and degenerate, this family is widely subsumed by gang activities, black marketeering, and criminal pastimes. They provide an important link for the Sabbat to access the seedy underworld. Mechanics * Revenants do not require a Domitor. If you have one, it must be a PC Domitor. * Age at a normal rate until maturity (35-40), then unaging. * Maximum age: 100. Characters 100+ years old must talk to Mortal Admin first. * Disciplines: 1 Potence plus 1 dot in family's traditional Disciplines. Discipline rating cannot exceed 1. * Must be affiliated and aware of the Sabbat. No "sect orphans." Kindred Views Though individual opinion about ghouls varies widely, some constants hold true among vampiric society, regardless of clan or sect. No vampire considers a ghoul their equal. Ghouls still need to eat, breathe, and shit the same as every other mortal out there. They are a drain, quite literally, a responsibility, and a liability. The blood bond ensures loyalty and absolute devotion, at the expense of problems. Imagine an obsessive boyfriend/girlfriend who will do quite literally anything to be with you, and multiply the crazy by ten, and you've got an idea of the vampire-ghoul dynamics under a third degree blood-bond. * Camarilla: On the surface, ghouls in the Camarilla have it infinitely better than the Sabbat. But remember the Camarilla is no more humane or caring than the Sword of Caine: they just hide it better. Kindred keep ghouls to manipulate the human world through proxies and to gain a convenient blood supply. The blood bond guarantees loyal servants conditioned to a specific role, whether household staff or gang enforcers. Camarilla society accepts the utility of ghouls in upholding the Masquerade to a point. Harpies will happily eviscerate any master thought to be too attached to his pets. * Sabbat: The Sword of Caine's general contempt for humans extends to ghouls. A Cainite rarely hesitates to ghoul a human as cannon fodder, a temporary go-between or a participant in a game of instinct, and thinks nothing of abusing a mortal for her own ends. Exceptions lie among the highly territorial Tzimisce, who have spent centuries warping and shaping peasants in their fiefdoms the way breeders select for certain traits among plants or livestock. Lasombra and Tzimisce may use ghouls in long-term schemes, but their ghouls are paranoid and bizarre as their masters. Sabbat ghouls can expect short, nasty, brutish lives and treatment to match. Category:Vampire Category:Mortal Category:Game